In recent years, efforts have been moving ahead to reduce thickness and weights of electronic devices, such as display panels, solar cells and thin-film secondary batteries, and thickness reductions of glass substrates used in those electronic devices have been progressing. When the strength of a glass substrate is lowered by reduction in thickness of the glass substrate, handling property of the glass substrate is depressed, and therefore it becomes difficult to form electronic device members (e.g. thin-film transistors and color filters) on the glass substrate.
In relation to such recent trends, the laminate of a glass substrate and a reinforcing sheet attached thereto in a separable condition is disclosed in Patent Document 1. After formation of electronic device members on the side of the glass substrate lying opposite to the reinforcing sheet side, the reinforcing sheet attached to the glass substrate is separated from the glass substrate. In this manner, the glass substrate can be compensated for the strength reduction.
In addition, Patent Document 1 has such a description that, in order to peel off the reinforcing sheet attached to a glass plate, initial peeling is carried out by inserting a razor blade or the like between the glass substrate and the reinforcing sheet. By carrying out the initial peeling, it becomes possible to easily perform the subsequent peeling.
On the other hand, as a peeling device for peeling off a glass substrate attached to an adsorbing member, Patent Document 2 proposes the device for peeling off a glass substrate by attaching a plate-shaped flexible member to the glass substrate, fixing plural rods on the flexible member, and allowing each rod to elongate and contract in its individual axial direction so that the glass substrate is subjected to sequential bending deformation from the both ends thereof.
In addition, as a peeling device for peeling off a reinforcing sheet attached to a resin substrate, Patent Document 3 discloses the device structured to sequentially bring the curved surface of a rotating body into contact with the upper surface of a reinforcing sheet while turning the rotating body to thereby sequentially cause bending deformation in contacted areas of the reinforcing sheet and peel off the reinforcing sheet.